Propagation of Energetic Charged Particles in the Solar Wind: Effects of Intermittency in the Medium

Abstract

We study the temporal evolution of energetic particle beams in an intermittently turbulent solar wind environment using the propagating source method developed by Zank and coworkers, which is based on the separation of the total particle distribution function into a main beam component (unscattered part) and a secondary component (produced by the scattered beam particles). We show here that intermittent changes in the turbulence responsible for scattering particles in the radial direction of the solar wind medium can contribute to the generation of fine-scale structure in the intensity profiles of impulsive events. Our aim in this paper is to simplify the problem to the extent that it allows us to demonstrate the suggested process. Implications of a more complicated transport equation are also discussed. We further address the issue of dropouts observed by Mazur and coworkers on the basis of transport in an intermittently turbulent medium.